WINNER 2008 DWIFF BEST Comedy ""FilmmakingFilmmaking aatt iitsts ppurest..."urest..." ""...a...a rrawaw ccomedicomedic ttributaryributary ooff hhumour."umour." --PunchPunch DDrunkrunk CCriticsritics --TheThe FFilmilm CCynicsynics A CRITICAL VIEW CONTENTS A review of “Stick It In Detroit” straight on than a needle going into an eyeball. A CRITICAL VIEW. 2 by Punch Drunk Critics It really is the type of scene you watch out of the corner of your eye because you can’t bear to ow budget independent films are a tricky look dead ahead. Next up is Wojo, a holy roller DIRECTOR Q&A . 3 thing for the average viewer, they carry at heart who can’t seem to keep from doing the L a kind of stigma that makes people think most hedonistic things of the whole group. He’d they are less than their mainstream counterpart be a priest if he could stop getting high and CAST . 4 and unfortunately for the most part they are banging random gutter sluts. The real service right. However, every once in a while a truly that Wojo does for the film is introduce us to great flick can be made out of great writing and its scene stealer and, I think, hands down the true creativity instead of piles of money and a funniest character in the flick, Rod “Hot Rod” CREW . 6 Hollywood formula the most famous example Johnson. He’s the wanna be white gangsta and is probably being Kevin Smith’s debut ‘Clerks’. played perfectly by Brett Gelman. Every time this Filmmaking at its purest and when it’s done right guy was on screen I was laughing my ass off and MUSIC. 7 it reminds you of what one can do with a little he even comes off with the most quotable lines bit of money, a camera, and a good idea, ‘Stick It of the movie. Rounding out the cast is Susan In Detroit’ is one of these great indie comedies. Misner ably playing Todd’s beautiful girlfriend The flick follows Todd Kennedy and his friends and Matt Chapman playing Gary, somewhat of on the days leading up to their annual Halloween an outsider to the group who happens to be a bash. Todd is thrown a curve ball when he’s successful lawyer and the pawn in Scott’s ploy to offered a promotion which will relocate him to a land a high society honey. The plot is somewhat factory in Georgia. He must decide if he’ll leave simplistic and secondary to the jokes, but for this his girlfriend and the friends he’s had since high film it worked. The laughs were great so you’d school, or forgo the promotion and “Stick it in almost feel a downturn if they had tried to hit Detroit”. you with too much story. Even with the minimal plot development they still managed to squeeze in Todd’s story is the heart of the movie, but just enough heart and emotion to make you feel the real funny comes from the colorful cast Todd’s decisions. of characters that comprise his friends. Scott, played by Kieran Campion, is hilarious as a All in all I had a great time with ‘Stick It In Wall Street wannabe who works as a janitor. Detroit’ and can only hope the flick get’s enough exposure so that plenty of people get to see it. It takes the kind of comedy that National “Filmmaking at its purest...” Lampoon’s has been failing at for the last few years and just knocks it out of the park. The His tendency to daydream provides some of the real charm and appeal to the movie is that films funniest moments, not to mention the gut anyone who still has friends from high school busting sequence at a snobbish country club can relate to it. You have nothing in common that he’s bullshitted his way into. Then there’s with these people other than the fact that you Justin Rose, the chubby nerd who draws a graduated together, yet despite your differences ridiculously perverted comic strip. Rose lucks you wouldn’t trade them for anything. Hell, I out when gorgeous girl starts working at his know at least three Hot Rod Johnson’s that I office, however his ineptitude with women and still see every once in awhile and now thanks to downright bad luck lead to the most cringe this flick I won’t be able to look at them with a inducing gross out scene I’ve seen in years. I straight face anymore. So if you guys want to see couldn’t do it justice to explain it here but let’s a hilarious comedy with just the right amount just say the genius is in its simplicity, they don’t of raunch and a little bit of gross out sprinkled feel the need to soak you in nastiness but rather in for good measure I definitely recommend take a small thing and make it harder to watch checking out ‘Stick It In Detroit’. 2 stick it in detroit DIRECTOR Q&A reading. We gave it to all our friends to read and married to it, and made it clear to all the actors they all went mad over it. The best compliment we that they had a lot of freedom in developing their ever received was from a friend who started to read characters and improving the scenes. So we would the script while going to the bathroom and ended up just let the camera roll, not really paying attention finishing it before he got off, that was when we knew at all to the amount of stock we burned through. we had something very cool. That was better than This really kept the mood on the set nice and loose any two thumbs up. So we did what any ambitious because nobody was freaking out that we were person would do; We put it on a shelf and let it wasting film. Had we not shot HD we would have been collect dust for three years. forced to settle on only a couple takes per shot and the cost of the film alone would have been nearly half So how did Stick it in Detroit go from sitting on our budget. A conversation with your shelf collecting dust to you actually filming it Robert Phelps director of in Detroit? How would you describe your directing style on Stick it in Detroit? the independent feature I got sick of waiting for Hollywood to call my number film comedy “Stick it in Detroit” and I was getting really bored with the crap that I would call it a lack of style. I didn’t want to over- by Guy Tickles was coming my way, so I sold everything I had direct this film. It is a straightforward movie set in a and moved back to Michigan to make the film. I straightforward city and I didn’t want to clutter it How did you and the other writers come up with sold everything, my bed, dishes, everything but my up with a bunch of crazy camera moves and overly the idea for Stick it in Detroit? clothes and computer. I was putting myself “all in”. I artistic angles. I had been on other shoots where bought an air mattress and rented a room from my an elaborate camera move could require a full day’s I was a struggling actor/director/waiter living very close friend and began pounding the pavement work or more, and we simply did not have that in Los Angeles and had just watched an advance trying to dig up money, but that was right around kind of time, nor did the story we were telling. The copy of the original American Pie and I really dug the time the bottom was beginning to fall out on the simpler the better. The characters and situations we the unapologetic humor. It reminded me a lot of economy in the Detroit area, so it was like pounding put them in were colorful enough. I wanted to shoot the movies that I loved in the 80s and also, being my head against a brick wall trying to get a dime it in a way that would efficiently tell the story and from Michigan, a lot of my own high school years. from someone. Thank God for my family and friends, the jokes, in a way that would give us the most time I called Gigi (Gaetano Aprea, co-writer Stick it in who believed enough in me to roll the dice. possible to work with the actors to allow them to create. Detroit), who was living in NYC and working as a plumber at the time and told him about what I had You decided to shoot the movie on HD more Finally, what were you trying to accomplish with just watched and that I believed that we could follow specifically the Sony F900 HD camera. Why did this film? suit and write our own script. He loved the idea you choose this medium? and started writing right away. He got back to me I wanted to show that for next to no money a couple of weeks later and he had come up with 10 I firmly believed that funny would be funny no (according to Hollywood’s standards of money) or so characters all loosely based on our friends and matter what we shot it on and I did not believe we could make a commercially attractive, highly people we knew from Michigan.